Category: The Dish

Omar hears one; and it’s encouraging for those who think Maliki can still succeed:

Two weeks ago the forces of the interior ministry arrested a group of militants that are believed responsible for a number of crimes. Those terror suspects turned out to be members of the Badr organization whose leader is Abdul Aziz al-Hakeem.
Al-Hakeem paid PM Maliki a visit and asked him to order the release of the detained Badr members, a request that upset Maliki and to which he responded by telling al-Hakeem "I am trying to build a state here and you come to ruin it?!! There’s no way I’m doing what you are asking me to do".
The two men exchanged very harsh words and al-Hakeem was so angry when he rushed out of al-Maliki’s office.

A good sign, if true. But the rumor itself is a good sign. We need Iraqis to believe that Maliki is a serious national figure, able to stand up to sectarian pressures. Rumors like this help.

I’ve started on the book and find it well put together and plausible. With books with anonymous sources with axes to grind, it’s hard to know for sure what to believe. You have to use your own judgment as best you can. Woodward, Barnes, Gordon/Trainor and Suskind make for a helpful quartet. It seems clear to me from Suskind’s book that it’s payback time for the CIA in their war against the Cheney-Rumsfeld axis. It also seems clear that payback may well be merited.

You don’t expect a man like Dick Cheney to panic after an incident like 9/11; but it seems in retrospect that he did; and his panic over-rode critical safeguards against error. Looking back, I think we can excuse our leaders of making some early errors in assessing a dark and near-invisible enemy, devoid of scruples and any decency. That doesn’t mean we should forgive their arrogant persistence in those mistakes; or their subsequent cover-ups. Cheney would have been better advised to be obsessing over Zarqawi in the summer of 2003, rather than Joe Wilson. Suskind also seems to have gotten one significant detail wrong with respect to the London 7/7 bombings: he may have muddled up one Mohammed Siddique Khan with one Mohammed Ajmal Khan. Here’s the Telegraph story on the alleged error, which Suskind denies. Make your own mind up.

Here’s a useful, brief historical analysis of why the U.S. decided not to take out Zarqawi in 2002. It was a mistake, in retrospect. But an understandable one.

Dublin, New Hampshire, 5 pm.

Is it getting bigger? Are the heretic-hunters and Michael Moore fans getting less intolerant? Jeff Jarvis hopes so.

The polls weren’t so fickle in the Second World War, despite Tony Snow’s comparison. Of course, that could be because less of the brutality was reported by a treacherous MSM; but it seems to me that that might be counterbalanced by the fact that far more Americans had loved ones directly in the line of fire then than do now. It could also be that Americans respond to steady, competent, candid leadership in wartime. And they also respond to its opposite.

A reader reminds me of an excellent piece by Vladimir Bukovsky I once linked to. I know that some conservatives don’t want to be reminded by former victims of Soviet Communism why torture is wrong and self-defeating, but others haven’t forgotten what conservatism used to stand for. As Bukovsky put it,

"if Vice President Cheney is right and that some "cruel, inhumane or degrading" (CID) treatment of captives is a necessary tool for winning the war on terrorism, then the war is lost already."

Indeed, as someone might say. But here’s the real money quote from Bukovsky’s piece, describing the effects of bureaucratized torture on an intelligence service:

"When torture is condoned, these rare talented people leave the service, having been outstripped by less gifted colleagues with their quick-fix methods, and the service itself degenerates into a playground for sadists. Thus, in its heyday, Joseph Stalin’s notorious NKVD (the Soviet secret police) became nothing more than an army of butchers terrorizing the whole country but incapable of solving the simplest of crimes."

My reader comments:

His article reminded me of a joke told to me by an Egyptian friend working for the UN. The Intelligence services of the US, UK and Egypt decided to have a competition.  The contest was to capture a fox released into the forest, in the shortest time possible. The CIA returned with their fox in 2 hours. MI6 returned in 4 hours.

After 12 hours a search was organized to locate the Egyptian team.  They were found with a rabbit tied to a tree, beating it and yelling: "You’re a fox!"

Let’s not discover what people in countries like Egypt already know – a regime that tortures will break its intelligence service, and lose itself in its own terror.

I fear we may have discovered this already. But it is never too late to change. McCain tried but Cheney over-ruled the Congress and the constitution. So we must try again.

PBS’s examination of vice-president Cheney’s handling of the war on terror is now up at YouTube.

They’re bowing to global pressure to cool it on gays. Money quote:

Resolved, the House of Deputies concurring, that the 75th General Convention receive and embrace The Windsor Report’s invitation to engage in a process of healing and reconcilation; and be it further

Resolved, that this Convention therefore call upon Standing Committees and bishops with jurisdiction to exercise restraint by not consenting to the consecration of any candidate to the episcopate whose manner of life presents a challenge to the wider church and will lead to further strains on communion.

This reverses a previous decision at the convention. Father Jake reacts here. It is not for me to comment on prudential decisions made within another denomination. If this avoids schism, maybe it’s defensible. If it allows people to become better used to the idea of faithful gay couples and gay priests, perhaps it’s a good thing. It doesn’t look like a reversal or anything. Just a prudent pause. But I’m open to different interpretations.

A reader writes:

Once again, you’ve overstepped in your denunciation of fundamentalism:

It reminds me of the fundamentalist mindset: because we are on the side of good, and our enemy is evil, we can do no wrong. The ends always justify the means.

I spent the first 21 years of my life firmly esconced in fundamentalist Christianity, and for all its faults, I must say that this mindset is something I never saw; in fact, I heard countless sermons making precisely the opposite point: "Never do evil so that good may come."  Or, as that most reviled of fundamentalists, Bob Jones, once said, "It is never right to do wrong in order to get a chance to do right."  During my student days–at a bastion of fundamentialism–I was a member of an intercollegiate debate team, and our topic one year was on whether violence was justified to overthrow domestic tyranny. There was much discussion as to the ethics of our even debating that topic because, while war against a tyrannical state might be justified, insurrection could never be, in light of St. Paul’s injunction that Christians submit to secular authority–even for the ultimate good of casting off tyranny.

Certainly, there are those such as Pat Robertson who fit the stereotype of the raving fundamentalist you hold dear, and certainly, the disconnect between this President’s actions and his professed Christianity has been in some cases quite jarring. But your habit of painting with such a broad brush lessens your value as a commentator on American political and religious life: you merely confirm the prejudices of your liberal readers and insult those on your right who are either theological fundamentalists or know and love those who are.

The reader has a point. Maybe it is better to say that this mindset is a fundamentalist temptation, made more likely by the certainty and absolutism that fundamentalism fosters, and the inerrancy it often requires and demands of its leaders. The brush exists. It’s just narrower than I described it.